‘An accident waiting to happen’: experts call for Australian rules football safety overhaul after player death

Concrete-based cricket pitches, like that on which Nathan Fitzgerald received fatal blows to the head, are ‘totally unsafe’, concussion advocate says

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Australia must finally deal with a deadly risk that has plagued its native football code for more than 120 years, sports safety advocates say, after the death of a suburban Aussie rules footballer.

Nathan Fitzgerald, a 27-year-old school teacher, died in a Melbourne hospital on Monday after a horror accident on Saturday in which it is believed the Epping reserves grade footballer clashed heads with another player while tackling an opponent and received a second blow to the head as he fell, before striking his head a third time on a concrete-based cricket pitch in the middle of the ground.

Fitzgerald’s death sent shock waves through his community of family, friends, teammates, colleagues and students, with the school at which he taught describing him as “deeply loved, valued and respected by all of us”.

The Epping Football Netball Club president, Luke De Vincentis, said on Monday that he hoped the “shock”, “confusion” and “heartbreak” of the amateur sportsman’s death would mean that the way cricket pitches are covered would “absolutely be looked at”.

“Because it is a significant risk and I think the weekend has proved what a dire outcome can be from that,” he told ABC local radio.

Even at the elite level, Australian Football League matches are played on ovals shared with cricket clubs – but at a grassroots level, many clubs have pitches with a concrete base rather than turf.

In the local government area where Fitzgerald’s final match was played, the City of Whittlesea, there are 16 such “multipurpose ovals” with concrete-based cricket wickets. The concrete-based pitch on the Lalor oval on which he died was covered with “a multilayered synthetic surface”, that a council spokesperson said was “designed to provide a safe level playing surface” and met AFL/Cricket Australia performance standards.

Dr Alan Pearce, a neurophysiologist whose primary research focus is on sports-related concussion, said accidents in contact sports were inevitable and that a coroner’s report would be required to determine the exact cause of Fitzgerald’s death and make any recommendations to try to prevent similar fatalities.

“[But] common sense would tell you that this was an accident waiting to happen,” Pearce said.

“There is no give in a concrete structure, so there is no absorption for the brain and so it is very similar, unfortunately, to a king hit, say, in the city, where someone is hit and they strike their head on the pavement.”

The Concussion Legacy Foundation Australia executive director, Annitta Siliato, said concrete-based cricket pitches were “totally unsafe” – and called on government and the AFL to work together to make them a thing of the past.

“Obviously, we can’t have concrete cricket pitches in the middle of grounds, I think that needs to be eliminated,” Siliato said.

“Not that that will eliminate the total risk of brain injuries, but it would lessen that risk.”

Stephen Townsend, whose research focuses on the history of brain trauma in sport, said that risk was one that has its roots in the earliest days of Australian rules football .

What would become known as Aussie rules was codified by members of the Melbourne Cricket Club in the mid-19th century as a way for cricketers to stay active in winter – and within a few decades the two codes were sharing grounds.

The symbiotic relationship between the two codes posed a new challenge for clubs, however: how to repair turf pitches trampled by football boots over winter in time for summer cricket.

“What a lot of suburban and country clubs started doing, because they didn’t necessarily have the resources or the money or the professional groundskeeping staff to turn these pitches around in time, is they started laying concrete pitches,” the University of Queensland lecturer said.

By the 1930s, Townsend said, the practice was widespread – Don Bradman, cricket’s greatest ever player, grew up playing on a concrete-based pitch in Bowral.

But even in Bradman’s day those pitches’ perils were long recognised – Townsend points to a Euroa Advertiser article in 1904 which reported footballers’ concerns about the “very dangerous” concrete cricket wicket on their oval.

“The first record that I have found of a concrete pitch causing death was in Western Australia in 1939,” the sport historian says.

According to a contemporary report from the local newspaper, the Great Southern Herald, that accident befell Wyvern Atkins, a “strong, stolidly built” 28-year-old man, described as one of the league’s “best and most popular” footballers.

Atkins leapt high into the air over a group of players, before somersaulting and striking his head on a concrete cricket pitch that had been covered in sand. He broke his neck and died almost immediately.

More than eight decades later, while Australian rules football continues to be played on grounds with concrete-based pitches, Townsend pointed to more recent sporting tragedies that have led to policy change, including the 2014 death of former Test cricketer Phillip Hughes .

Hughes was struck on the neck by a bouncer, an accident which prompted Cricket Australia to mandate for better neck protection.

Siliato said Fitzgerald’s tragic death should also lead to changes that would make sport safer.

“This incident is a highly unfortunate series of events,” she said. “But it has highlighted to us that we really need to advocate for safer sports.”

Among other changes, Siliato said junior contact sport should be modified, and compulsory concussion and CTE protocols should be introduced at a grassroots level.

“We want to continue playing these sports,” Siliato said. “But we need to make sure all the safety mechanisms are in place.”

Pearce said that football in Australia across all codes was already at a crossroads when it came to brain injuries, but that both institutional and cultural change was needed to make contact sport safer.

“There is still, culturally, a hesitancy to acknowledge concussion as a brain injury,” he said. “We still call it head knocks, which can kind of trivialise the injury. This tragic death over the weekend was not a head knock, it was a severe traumatic brain injury.”

Mayor Lawrie Cox said the City of Whittlesea covered its wickets “in accordance with guidelines set out by the AFL and Cricket Australia”.

“If this practice is determined to have played a role in the injuries sustained by Nathan Fitzgerald, council would support a review of the guidelines in collaboration with the sporting associations to strengthen player safety,” Cox said.

The AFL did not respond to questions, but its CEO, Andrew Dillon, released a statement saying that “at times like these, football is about much more than the game itself”.

“It is about coming together to support one another, with the team at AFL Victoria working closely with those affected and continuing to provide wellbeing support to Nathan’s family, his club and everyone impacted across the days and weeks ahead,” Dillon said.

A spokesperson for the federal government did not respond to specific questions.

“We are deeply saddened to hear of Nathan Fitzgerald’s death, and our thoughts are with his loved ones at this time,” the spokesperson said.

This weekend’s AFL match between the Melbourne Demons and the team for which Fitzgerald barracked, the Richmond Tigers, will hold a minute’s silence as a tribute to his passing, and all 18 AFL clubs, as well as community clubs around the country, will wear black armbands.